Therapeutic use of ganglioside GM1 in the treatment of spinal cord injury

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for amelioration of neurological outcome in humans with spinal cord damage by administration of ganglioside GM1. Another object of the present invention is to provide combination therapies for the treatment of spinal cord damage comprised of the administration of the ganglioside GM1 and other drugs which have therapeutical benefit in patients with spinal cord damage, preferably methylprednisolone.

Description

BACKGROUND AND FIELD OF THE INVENTIONSpinal cord injury is a devastating injury with, today, no significantly useful therapy. Emergency medical treatment for spinal-cord injury patients has included prompt triage and intensive rehabilitation. These therapies have somewhat increased or optimized remaining neurologic functions in those patients and prevented further injury to the spinal cord. However, only a minority of patients ever achieve any major neurologic recovery. As a result, no effective acute treatment or rehabilitation therapy is presently available for the approximately 10,000 patients per year which suffer from major spinal cord injury and the consequent permanent disability.Development of effective treatments is also made more difficult because it is difficult to extrapolate to therapy in humans from animal studies. There is significant controversy about whether any and which animal models best simulate spinal cord injuries in humans, about whether the models are reprod...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The study demonstrates that GM1 treatment leads to significant improvements in neurologic function, with 23.5% of patients showing two or more Frankel grade improvements and 68.8% showing over 20 points of motor recovery, compared to historical data, indicating a remarkable neurobeneficial efficacy in spinal cord injury treatment.

Problems solved by technology

Spinal cord injury is a devastating injury with, today, no significantly useful therapy.

However, only a minority of patients ever achieve any major neurologic recovery.

As a result, no effective acute treatment or rehabilitation therapy is presently available for the approximately 10,000 patients per year which suffer from major spinal cord injury and the consequent permanent disability.

Development of effective treatments is also made more difficult because it is difficult to extrapolate to therapy in humans from animal studies.

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